Chapter 149: Harem Romance Manga
“Hey! What are those looks!” Endo Tatsuya hurriedly explained, “Don’t get the wrong idea! I mean that kind… a happy family story with a couple and a little girl! The very heartwarming kind!”
Ryū Kōshin breathed a sigh of relief: “Oh, I see, that scared me for a moment. I thought you were going to draw lolicon manga…”
“However…” Ryū Kōshin rubbed his chin and said, “Family themes are warm, but they seem hard to have explosive points. The only ones I can think of right away are old kids’ shows like《Chibi Maruko-chan》. Sakamoto Sensei’s advice to me before was very useful. He said to design strong dramatic conflict in the character designs.”
Endo Tatsuya nodded and said, “Yeah, I’ve actually considered adding some superpower elements…”
“Superpower family?” Sakamoto Ken looked at Endo Tatsuya and said, “Then couldn’t you set the whole family so that each person has their own secret they can’t reveal publicly?”
“Secrets?” Endo Tatsuya was stunned.
“Yes.” Sakamoto Ken guided, “For example, they conceal their secret identities from each other while trying to maintain the facade of a harmonious family. Plus the little girl’s childlike psychological characteristics… This way, the work’s audience won’t be limited to just kids.”
“That’s right!” Endo Tatsuya’s eyes suddenly lit up. He excitedly clapped his hands, “Set the male protagonist as a top spy and the heroine as an assassin! They pretend to marry and form a family for some purpose!”
He grew more excited: “Then, the little girl they adopt is actually a telepathic superpower user! The male lead and heroine desperately conceal their identities from each other, but the little girl knows everything from the start! She thinks her dad and mom are super cool and puts on big plays in her head every day!”
“Interesting!” Kaji Keiko’s eyes lit up immediately after hearing it, “This idea is awesome! Endou-san, you must develop this idea further. It absolutely has the potential to be a huge hit!”
Sakamoto Ken hadn’t expected that his casual pointer would lead Endo Tatsuya to actually come up with the《Spy x Family》 core setting.
Kaku Yuji, who had been silent, muttered softly: “Seems like only my manga doesn’t have a direction yet…”
He clenched his fist and rallied his spirits: “But I’ll catch up to everyone as soon as possible!”
Sakamoto Ken looked at the three with full motivation and felt quite emotional inside.
As expected of you guys.
《Hell’s Paradise》,《Bold Party》,《Spy x Family》.
In the previous life, these three works were all bestsellers on JUMP+. They were the three powerhouses from Tatsuki Fujimoto Sensei’s studio.
Now, this dream team was assembling early in his own studio.
Sakamoto Ken recalled the sales volume of these three works.
《Hell’s Paradise》 had millions in sales volume,《Bold Party》 exceeded ten million, and《Spy x Family》 was heavyweight. In the previous life before his rebirth, its cumulative sales volume had already broken 40 million copies. It was a phenomenal hit.
He didn’t plan to claim these three works for himself.
《Hell’s Paradise》 was only millions in sales volume. He could clearly choose works with tens of millions.
While《Bold Party》 and《Spy x Family》 were more like collections of episodic stories. As long as the author wanted, they could theoretically keep going. They weren’t even finished when he was reborn.
Works that already had clear main plots and endings, at least stage-wise conclusions, were the ones suitable to draw.
Let them draw them themselves. Being a guide wasn’t bad either.
In the evening, Kaji Keiko had to return to the company first, the three assistants had also left, and the studio finally quieted down.
In the large detached house, Sakamoto Ken was alone again.
Sakamoto Ken first tidied up the manuscripts on the desk and carefully put away the completed storyboard draft.
He took out a new sheet of manuscript paper but didn’t immediately start drawing the next chapter of《Chainsaw Man》.
Sakamoto Ken leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and images of Natsume Mio and Mikazuki Haruna appeared in his mind.
《Chainsaw Man》 was popular, but at its core it was a righteous… unrighteous hot-blooded battle manga with basically no romance elements.
Although the Reze Arc proved Tatsuki Fujimoto Sensei absolutely had the ability to create super strong romance stories, he still leaned more toward heads flying and blood-splattering scenes, plus plot developments normal people couldn’t imagine…
But even for such a work, Natsume Mio and Mikazuki Haruna would still unconsciously substitute themselves into Makima and Power’s roles.
Mio could even project Denji’s obsession with bouncing chests onto him, and through understanding Denji, link it to Sakamoto Ken’s experiences, thinking he might not be a scumbag…
Sakamoto Ken had to admit this self-strategy effect was better than he imagined.
For love triangle strategy, what is the supreme principle?
Take the initiative and conquer them one by one?
That method was too ordinary, and it was easy to cause imbalanced crises like in the previous life when information wasn’t shared.
But what if… the opposite?
If he didn’t need to take the initiative at all, but let them strategy him themselves…
Then, a true harem romance work would be the best weapon.
Bind him as the author with the male protagonist in the manga, let them substitute as the heroines in the manga…
Perfectly, there was just such a work in his mind that started serializing in the second half of 2017 on JUMP’s rival《Weekly Shonen Magazine》.
Moreover, that work’s male protagonist actually had some clever commonalities with him.
The male protagonist’s mother started a business before she died and left huge debts, leading to an extremely poor family life. The male protagonist had to desperately seek part-time jobs to pay off the debt…
Another classic broke person male protagonist start.
Although《Chainsaw Man》’s serialization had just started not long ago, the assistant team was just formed, and it was still far from the end of the Public Safety Arc.
But preparations for a new work could already begin.
Worst case, serialize two works at the same time and they could cross-promote each other…
Although the styles of the two works were completely unrelated, dare to imagine what the market reaction would be if the previous life’s Tatsuki Fujimoto published a harem romance manga after finishing《Chainsaw Man》?
At least several rounds of hot searches were guaranteed.
Either way, it was a phenomenal work that broke 20 million in total sales in later years, with merchandise selling big and animation exploding.
Sakamoto Ken picked up the pencil and began outlining on the manuscript paper.
He first drew five girls with different poses.
Then next to each girl, he wrote their names in order:
Ichika, Nino, Miku, Yotsuba, Itsuki.
